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There’s quiet hope that reform could actually happen, and supporters don’t want to get in the way.

NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 17: Immigrants celebrate after taking the oath of allegiance to the United States at a naturalization ceremony on January 17, 2014 in New York City. One hundred and fifty-three people from 41 countries became American citizens at the event.

Demo­crats are mildly, ques­tion­ingly op­tim­ist­ic about the House Re­pub­lic­an draft im­mig­ra­tion prin­ciples that were rolled out last week.

And that muted re­sponse is the best in­dic­at­or that they are still hold­ing out hope that re­form will ac­tu­ally hap­pen.

“[House Re­pub­lic­an] lead­er­ship has ar­tic­u­lated a path and we don’t want to pre­clude us walk­ing down that path with them,” House Minor­ity Whip Steny Hoy­er said. “We’ll see where they go and and we don’t want to im­pede mak­ing pro­gress on that, so our re­sponse has been pretty cal­ib­rated to say, OK, you set forth prin­ciples, now let’s see what kind of con­sensus you have in your party, how that will be put for­ward in spe­cif­ics, and if we can work to­geth­er to get to an end. We think that’s con­struct­ive on our part.”

Cap­it­ol Hill’s polit­ic­al land­scape around im­mig­ra­tion re­form is mostly centered around sway­ing a core of House Re­pub­lic­ans. If a chunk of the con­fer­ence in the House backs re­form this year, those prin­ciples will be mani­fes­ted in le­gis­la­tion. Some of them, like bor­der se­cur­ity, have already been ad­dressed via bills that passed House com­mit­tees.

Demo­crats may be happy Re­pub­lic­ans are talk­ing im­mig­ra­tion, but that’s as far as they’ll go. That’s par­tially be­cause it’s un­clear how the GOP draft prin­ciples will be spelled out in le­gis­la­tion, and also be­cause a Demo­crat­ic en­dorse­ment could hinder the ef­forts to get Re­pub­lic­ans on board with re­form this year.

“They have a long way to go, and I will re­spect that be­cause we took our time here to make sure we were able to pro­duce something that I think is a very good piece of le­gis­la­tion,” said Sen. Mi­chael Ben­net, a Col­or­ado Demo­crat who was in the Sen­ate Gang of Eight that craf­ted the Sen­ate’s im­mig­ra­tion bill. “We got the sup­port of both Re­pub­lic­ans and Demo­crats, and I hope they end up in a sim­il­ar place when they fin­ish.”

A memo from House Speak­er John Boehner’s of­fice of­fers a side-by-side com­par­is­on of the House GOP prin­ciples and the Sen­ate bill, the in­ten­tion be­ing to show how the two are worlds apart.

“It’s prob­ably a good polit­ic­al move. That’s great,” Sen. Jeff Flake, an Ari­zona Re­pub­lic­an and Gang of Eight mem­ber, said of the memo. “There’s been will­ing­ness on the part of the pres­id­ent, it looks like, and Demo­crat­ic lead­er­ship, to work. And cer­tainly Re­pub­lic­an sen­at­ors will work with them.”

Demo­crats ac­know­ledge they are giv­ing House Re­pub­lic­ans “room to breathe,” as one Sen­ate lead­er­ship aide put it. An­oth­er noted that there isn’t any­thing in the draf­ted prin­ciples that can be in­ter­preted as a deal-break­er, at least not yet. “We don’t want to be viewed as the ones who tor­pedoed this thing,” one House Demo­crat­ic law­maker said.

“There’s a lot of space be­ing giv­en, and what I said, there are more ques­tions than an­swers,” said Demo­crat­ic Rep. Raul Gri­jalva of Ari­zona. “A lot of my col­leagues who have been on this is­sue are keep­ing their powder dry. They’re not say­ing any­thing.”

But an in­tern­al de­bate is stir­ring among Demo­crats as to how long to hold back cri­ti­cism. The GOP draft spe­cific­ally rules out a “spe­cial path­way to cit­izen­ship for those who broke our na­tion’s im­mig­ra­tion laws,” in fa­vor of a leg­al­iz­a­tion mech­an­ism. What the draft doesn’t in­dic­ate is wheth­er those who tread down the path to­ward leg­al­iz­a­tion could even­tu­ally be­come cit­izens.

Gri­jalva said one deal-break­er for him is a pro­hib­i­tion of cit­izen­ship for any of those im­mig­rants here il­leg­ally now.

But just be­cause so many hope re­form will hap­pen this year doesn’t mean it ac­tu­ally will. The im­mig­ra­tion de­bate has only barely be­gun in the House. The pro­spect of ac­tu­ally vot­ing on le­gis­la­tion is a ways off, es­pe­cially with the debt-ceil­ing fight im­me­di­ately ahead and a fall elec­tion loom­ing. Re­pub­lic­an lead­er­ship, mean­while, be­lieves it can take its time.

And that time­frame may ex­tend out a while. Re­pub­lic­an Rep. Mario Diaz-Bal­art, a sup­port­er of re­form, said at a Tues­dayBloomberg Gov­ern­ment break­fast that a ma­jor­ity of House Re­pub­lic­ans op­pose mov­ing ahead with im­mig­ra­tion this year. Some Re­pub­lic­ans, like Sen­ate Minor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell, called it an “ir­resolv­able con­flict,” adding, “I don’t see how you get to an out­come this year with the two bod­ies in such a dif­fer­ent place.”

The de­bate is mov­ing in a dir­ec­tion where Re­pub­lic­ans an­swer ques­tions on the pos­sib­il­ity of re­form by say­ing many dis­trust the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion to ac­tu­ally en­force im­mig­ra­tion laws. “We don’t trust the pres­id­ent to en­force the law,” Rep. Paul Ry­an, R-Wis., an ad­voc­ate for re­form, said this week­end.

But don’t ex­pect Demo­crats to hold their tongues on that point, es­pe­cially with the re­cord num­ber of de­port­a­tions un­der Obama.

“It’s a way to ra­tion­al­ize their un­will­ing­ness to move for­ward,” Hoy­er said. “I don’t give it any cred­ib­il­ity.”

The House has completed it's business for 2016 by passing a spending bill which will keep the government funded through April 28. The final vote tally was 326-96. The bill's standing in the Senate is a bit tenuous at the moment, as a trio of Democratic Senators have pledged to block the bill unless coal miners get a permanent extension on retirement and health benefits. The government runs out of money on Friday night.

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